Page:Diamonds To Sit On.pdf/15

BEZENCHUK AND ' THE NYMPHS ’

3 ‘Bon jour,’ Hippolyte mumbled to himself as he dangled his feet over the edge of the bed. ‘Bon jour’ meant he had wakened up in a good mood. If he grunted ‘Guten Morgen’ on waking up, then that generally meant his liver was behaving badly, that it was no joke to be fifty-two years old, and that the weather was very muggy these days.

He thrust his scraggy legs into a pair of ready-made trousers bought before the War, fastened them round his ankles with two pieces of tape, and pushed his feet into a pair of low, comfortable boots with square toes. Five minutes later he was dressed in a short black coat and a waistcoat made of grey cloth sprinkled with small silver stars. He shook the last drops of water from his grey head, twitched his moustache, and slowly felt his scrubby chin. Then he rapidly brushed his hair and, smiling politely, walked towards his mother-in-law as she came into his room.

‘Hippolyte,’ she shouted, ‘I had a bad dream last night.’

Hippolyte looked at her from top to toe. He was well over six feet, and from such a height it was easy enough for him to look down scornfully at her.

‘I dreamt of poor dear Maria last night,’ she continued loudly, ‘her hair was down and she was wearing a golden belt.’

She always bellowed when she spoke, and this time the lustres on the dusty chandeher rattled and shook.

‘I’m most upset. I’m sure something dreadful will happen.’

She blew out the last words with such force that the tuft of hair on the top of Hippolyte’s head rose in the air.

He frowned and said in a matter-of-fact voice:

‘Nothing will happen, mother. Have you paid the water-rate yet?’

She had not paid the water-rate and his goloshes had not been cleaned. Hippolyte did not love his mother-in-law. She was stupid, but she was too old